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Parental optimism about childhood obesity-related disease risks.

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVES:Most parents believe childhood obesity is a problem for society, but not for their own children. We sought to understand whether parents' risk assessment was skewed by optimism, the tendency to overestimate one's chances of experiencing positive events. METHODS:We administered a national web-based survey to 502 parents of 5-12-year-old children. Parents reported the chances that (a) their child and (b) 'a typical child in their community' would be overweight or obese, and develop hypertension, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and depression in adulthood. Respondents self-reported demographic and health information, and we obtained demographic and health information about the typical child using zip code-level census and lifestyle data. We used regression models with fixed effects to evaluate whether optimism bias was present in parent predictions of children's future health outcomes. RESULTS:Parents had 40 times lower adjusted odds (OR=0.025, P<0.001, 99% CI: 0.006, 0.100) of predicting that their child (versus a typical child) would be overweight or obese in adulthood. Of the 20% of parents who predicted their child would be overweight in adulthood, 93% predicted the typical child would also be overweight in adulthood. Controlling for health and demographic characteristics, parents estimated that their children's chances of developing obesity-related comorbidities would be 12-14 percentage points lower those that of a typical child. CONCLUSIONS:Parent risk assessment is skewed by optimism, among other characteristics. More accurate risk perception could motivate parents to engage in behavior change.

SUBMITTER: Wright DR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5626577 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Parental optimism about childhood obesity-related disease risks.

Wright D R DR Lozano P P Dawson-Hahn E E Christakis D A DA Haaland W L WL Basu A A

International journal of obesity (2005) 20170503 10

<h4>Objectives</h4>Most parents believe childhood obesity is a problem for society, but not for their own children. We sought to understand whether parents' risk assessment was skewed by optimism, the tendency to overestimate one's chances of experiencing positive events.<h4>Methods</h4>We administered a national web-based survey to 502 parents of 5-12-year-old children. Parents reported the chances that (a) their child and (b) 'a typical child in their community' would be overweight or obese, a ...[more]

PMID: 28465611

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Rapid infant weight gain (RIWG) is a very strong predictor of childhood overweight and obesity (COO). Socioeconomic position (SEP) is also related to the risk of COO and parents of different SEP may differ in their reaction to accelerated infant weight gain. Together this could lead to differences in how weight gain and COO risk relate across SEP. This study aimed to analyse possible interaction of SEP and RIWG on COO risk. METHODS:A register-based longitudinal cohort study followed 19,894 healthy, term infants, born in Denmark between December 2011 and May 2015. Logistic regression models were used to estimate odds ratios (OR) of COO risk at 2 years (22-26 months) of age with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for categories of infancy weight gain based on changes in weight-for-age z-scores between 0 and 8-10 months of age (slow (<- 0.67), mean (- 0.67-0.67), rapid (> 0.67-1.34) and very rapid (> 1.34)). Possible multiplicative and additive interaction of SEP (based on household income and maternal education) on the relationship between infancy weight gain and COO were analysed. RESULTS:In total, 19.1 and 15.1% experienced rapid or very rapid weight gain, respectively, and 1497 (7.5%) children were classified with COO at follow-up. These prevalences were higher in those with lower levels of SEP. Adjusted OR for COO were 3.09 (95% CI [2.66-3.59]) and 7.58 (95% CI [6.51-8.83]) for rapid and very rapid weight gain, respectively, when household income was included in the model. Results were similar in the model including maternal education. No signs of interactions were detected on a multiplicative scale. Weak signs of additive interaction were present, but these values did not reach significance. CONCLUSION:Both rapid and very rapid weight gain were associated with substantially higher risks of COO but these associations were not modified by SEP. This indicates that promotion of healthy weight gain should take place in all population groups irrespective of their SEP.

Project description:ObjectiveSociodemographic changes in Norway and other western industrialised countries, including family structure and an increasing proportion of cohabiting and divorced parents, might affect the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity issues. We aimed to examine whether parental marital status was associated with general and abdominal obesity among children. We also sought to explore whether the associations differed by gender.DesignCross-sectional.Setting127 primary schools across Norway.Participant3166 third graders (mean age 8.3?years) participating in the nationally representative Norwegian Child Growth Study in 2010.MeasurementsHeight, weight and waist circumference were objectively measured. The main outcome measures were general overweight (including obesity; body mass index ?25?kg/m(2)) using International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) cut-offs and abdominal obesity (waist-to-height ratio ?0.5) by gender and parental marital status. Prevalence ratios, adjusted for possible confounders, were calculated by log-binomial regression.ResultsGeneral overweight (including obesity) was 1.54 (95% CI 1.21 to 1.95) times more prevalent among children of divorced parents compared with children of married parents, and the corresponding prevalence ratio for abdominal obesity was 1.89 (95% CI 1.35 to 2.65). Formal tests of the interaction term parental marital status by gender were not statistically significant. However, in gender-specific analyses the association between parental marital status and adiposity measures was only statistically significant in boys (p=0.04 for general overweight (including obesity) and p=0.01 for abdominal obesity). The estimates were robust against adjustment for maternal education, family country background and current area of residence.ConclusionsGeneral and abdominal obesities were more prevalent among children of divorced parents. This study provides valuable information by focusing on societal changes in order to identify vulnerable groups.

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Parental optimism about childhood obesity-related disease risks.

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Parental optimism about childhood obesity-related disease risks.

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